


Flowering in April

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: La bohème - Puccini/Illica/Giacosa
Genre: Community: ladiesbingo, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Illness, Missing Scene, Paris - Freeform, tuberculosis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 03:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13181667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Musetta hears that Mimì has left the Vicomte and goes to look for her, knowing all the time that there is nothing she can do for her.





	Flowering in April

**Author's Note:**

> For the Ladiesbingo prompt 'Journeys and Quests'

A rumour, light as a flower petal, drifting through Paris on the spring breeze –

'Lucia, used to make silk roses, do you remember her...'

– whispered amongst the seamstresses at Mme Guichet's workshop –

'(Mimì, they call her...)'

– passed from hand to hand along with the opera glasses and bonbons, amongst the chatter in the boxes at the Opéra Comique –

'Left that Vicomte she was living with...'

– called from barouche to landau in the Rue Royale –

'Dying of consumption, poor girl...'

– shouted over the hubbub at the Café Momus –

'No, everybody knows that!'

– handed around with the coffee cups of the demi-monde, the misfortune of another human, the knowledge that, after all, it was not oneself, far sweeter than lump sugar –

'I haven't seen her for weeks, have you?'

– mouth to ear, ear to mouth, friend to friend, stranger to stranger, blowing around the streets like discarded newspaper, but never reaching the treetops or the attics or the clear blue sky above –

'Nobody knows where she's gone...'

Musetta heard it from Louise, who'd heard it from Raoul, who'd heard it from Mme Dupré. Now that she listened for it, she heard it everywhere. _Lucia, whom they call Mimì, has left that Vicomte she was living with, and is dying of consumption_.

Musetta left her own old man with a stack of bills and the flower she'd worn in her hair last night, and she went out to look for Mimì.

Was it pity? Friendship? Fellow feeling? She could not have told why she went, but then there was nobody to ask her. She walked alone through the streets, shrugging off courtesy and catcalls alike. She went to Mme Guichet's and to the Café Momus. She did not go to the attic. Musetta knew that she would have heard of it if Mimì had gone back to Rodolfo.

Instead, she kept her eyes on the ground, looking for a huddled shape in the gutter or a thin figure in an alleyway. She asked friends, acquaintances, strangers: had they heard anything of Mimì? Had they seen her? But nobody had.

Colline the philosopher, Schaunard the musician, were loitering in Momus, and they greeted Musetta with tolerant friendliness, as if she were a stray cat begging her dinner at every house in the street.

'Have you seen Mimì, lately?' she asked, and they shook their heads.

'Don't talk about Mimì,' they said. 'Rodolfo is still waiting for her to go back to him, and woe betide the man who tells him she never will.'

She thanked them, and moved on.

She saw Marcello in the distance once, and let him go on his way: he would have nothing to tell her of Mimì, and she had nothing to say to him.

Musetta followed the rumours, her own knowledge of how things worked around here, and her intuition.

She found her at last, seated on a kerbstone, her arms around her knees and her dress splashed with mud. Tears had marked pale paths down the dust on her face and blood marked the corners of her mouth.

But she was alive, and now she need not be alone. It was not too late, Musetta thought desperately. Although she knew it always had been.

'Mimì,' she said.

Startled, Mimì looked up at her with bright, blank eyes. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'll move on. I didn't mean to annoy you.'

Musetta held out a hand to her. 'Mimì,' she said, gently, 'don't you remember me? It's Musetta.'

Mimì laughed, and turned her head away when it became a cough. 'Of course. Musetta.'

This was no place for _where have you been since you left the Vicomte?_ or _I've been looking everywhere_ or _how are you?_ Musetta only said, 'Come with me,' and bent to help Mimì to her feet. Mimì clung to her; Musetta steadied her, pulling her arm across her own shoulders and supporting her with an arm around the waist.

'Where...?' Mimì whispered.

That was the question. Mimì needed a bed, and warmth, and comfort, and a doctor. Where could she find those? The Vicomte was out of the question, or Mimì would be there still; none of Musetta's old gentlemen lovers would speak to her, with or without a dying companion; perhaps the inn at the Porte de Gentilly? But Mimì could never walk that far. No, there was nothing else for it: they would both have to swallow their pride.

It would not, Musetta told herself grimly, be for long.

'We'll go to Marcello's... Rodolfo's...' Musetta said, and felt Mimì's thin shoulders shake with something that was halfway between a cough and a sob.

'Do you think he will see me? Will you really take me to him?'

'Don't worry,' Musetta said. And then, when Mimì stumbled, 'It isn't far to go. It isn't far at all.'


End file.
